"I ain't but a private."
"Didn't you get the news? That's the Army for you. Lieutenant promoted you to corporal this morning. Congratulations. A battlefield promotion. Good luck finding an extra stripe around here, much less a needle and thread."
Cole shook his head. "You better stay healthy, Sarge."
"I will if I can help it, but there you are just in case."
A sound reached down from the skies. Cole heard the whine of approaching planes. These had become far more familiar. Approaching at incredible speed, the Corsairs swooped low over the American position and headed for the hills beyond. A ragged cheer went up from the Americans. They knew what the enemy was in for.
All that Cole could see were the brown hills, but the pilot must have spotted a target. As he and the sergeant watched, transfixed, one of the planes dropped a payload of napalm. The jellied gasoline burned a strip of mountainside, black smoke roiling up. Something about the orange flames was far more horrifying than any artillery burst. It was hard not to feel sorry for the poor bastards on the receiving end of that, enemy or not. Cole shuddered.
They moved on to the next foxhole. Two men lay in the bottom, apparently sleeping.
"Price? Harper? How you two holding up?"
But there was no answer to the sergeant's question. Cole started to get a bad feeling about this one. Both soldiers were barely more than high school kids. They should have had someone more experienced out here with them — or maybe they had, and those men were now among the dead. Not that far away, a detail was retrieving the bodies of the Americans that had mixed among the Chinese dead. They were stacking the frozen dead like cordwood.
Down in the foxhole, Cole noticed that neither of the young soldiers was inside a sleeping bag, but they were huddled together for warmth.
"Hey!" the sergeant said, louder now. “You two lovebugs better wake up!”
Looking closer, Cole could see frost coating their eyelashes, the flesh of their faces white and frigid. There was no sign of blood or injury. They had survived the battle last night, only to freeze to death.
"They're dead, Sarge," Cole said quietly.
"Don't you think I can see that?" the Sarge snapped. But his anger immediately dissipated. He muttered, "Goddamn. How many others are we going to find like that?"
It was a good question, but the answer was going to have to wait. They heard the sound of more approaching planes, high above, but moving fast in the cold air. They both turned in time to see parachutes floating down from the planes.
"C'mon!" Weber shouted. "It looks as if somebody remembered us, after all."
Several other soldiers joined them as they ran for the rear area where the drop was taking place. The planes were low enough that they could get a good glimpse of them. These Fairchild Flying Boxcars were twin-engine propeller-driven cargo planes with a unique divided tail design — almost making the planes resembled a giant tuning fork. The fuselage ended in a wide cargo door, wide open as crates spilled from the hold. Surely, the Chinese could see the incoming planes, but not a shot molested them. Without any Chinese Air Force to speak of, the cargo planes approach unmolested. The cargo was being dropped at low altitude so that there would be little chance of missing the encircled Americans and accidentally supplying the Chinese troops instead.
The problem was that the crates were coming in too hard without enough time for the parachutes to slow them down.
"Look out!" someone yelled. Men scrambled to dodge the incoming crates.
Some of the cargo hit nearby small trees, snapping off the frigid branches with a godawful racket. Other crates hit the frozen ground and popped open.
Overhead, the planes were gone as quickly as they had appeared.
"Just like Christmas!" shouted a soldier, pawing through the materials.
After all, the troops were now desperately low on supplies. But the soldiers were soon disappointed.
"What the hell is this?" Sergeant Weber demanded, inspecting a crate filled with .40 mm ammunition. What they needed was more .50 caliber ammo. "It’s the wrong damn ammo. Scheisse! If worse comes to worse, maybe we can throw this at the enemy."
Nearby, another soldier held up cooking pots. The entire crate was apparently filled with pots, pans, and cooking utensils. That was a hoot, considering that the soldiers barely had any wood for fires. "What are we supposed to do with these? Make soup?"
Weber reached into the crate and extracted a well-wrapped bundle. Pulling away the wrapping, he revealed a bottle of bourbon. "At least it's not a total loss, boys," he said, and handed the bottle off to a nearby soldier. "Somebody back there had some sense and was looking out for us. Share that around. It is not schnapps, but it might help take the chill off."
The sergeant started back toward the front line, Cole walking beside him. Most of the supplies, sent at great expense and effort, appeared to be entirely useless. One exception seemed to be several jerry cans of gasoline and some medical supplies. For the most part, they had just witnessed a typical Army SNAFU. Situation Normal, All Fouled Up.
"Looks like we're on our own," the sergeant said. "Word is that we are basically surrounded and cut off. The question is, how long do we have to hold out?"
"We ain't gonna hold out for long if the Chinese keep attacking like they did last night and if this cold keeps up," Cole said. They were coming back to the foxholes occupied by their own squad. Nearby, the burial detail was still moving among the dead, gathering American bodies stiff as frozen slabs of beef. He looked away. Cole shook his head. "We'll be down to bayonets and rocks."
"God help us," Weber said.
At that moment, a rifle cracked somewhere off in the surrounding hills, and one of the soldiers in the burial detail suddenly threw back his arms and fell over. The others dropped what they were doing and ran for cover.
"Sniper!" Sergeant Weber shouted.
Then he and Cole jumped down into the foxhole with the frozen soldiers for company, keeping their heads down as the sniper fired again.
Chapter Thirteen
High above the American position, Chen lay hidden among a tumble of boulders. A dusting of snow covered the ridge so that Chen's quilted white uniform blended almost perfectly against the landscape. It would take very keen eyes to pick him out.
"We should move closer," said Zhao. "You will waste too many bullets shooting from here."
"There's not enough cover down there," Chen replied, not bothering to take his eye from the rifle.
Much to his chagrin, he was not alone. Beside him lay Zhao, who had been assigned as his spotter. Of course, Chen was well aware that Zhao’s role was as much spy as spotter. He was not a very good spotter, Chen thought, which likely meant that he was a better spy. He was certainly a creature of Major Wu. There was a tiny bird who sang of what he saw. The Chinese were jealous of giving any one man too much independence — especially a man with a rifle.
Another American plane roared overhead, but disguised among the rocks, Chen and Zhao did not present any sort of target. Even Zhao was not so much of a fool to move a muscle as the plane passed over.
He hated these fast-moving planes that gave the Americans superiority by daylight, forcing the Chinese to hide like rats. The pilots knew that there must be thousands of Chinese troops hidden in these hills, and yet they must have been frustrated in their search. From time to time, the planes did unleash bombs or napalm, but Chen had to wonder — had a Chinese soldier truly been foolish enough to show himself, or had the Americans bombed a rabbit or deer?
He was half-tempted to try to shoot one down, but Chen knew very well that would be an exercise in futility — one that might also bring the wrath of an American pilot down upon him.